Patti Smith - The Tiger (by William Blake) (Performed at the Wadsworth Atheneum)

[@veilbreak5867]

I love this poem. Its just about the awesomeness of creation. Like how you feel when you stop and think about how impossible and perfect everything is. Its magical.

[@MrTubularBalls]

That's not what the poem is about.

[@johannabeasley2031]

what a pleasure to share two of the best together.....thank you

[@stuartarkovitz8758]

I teach Blake, the mighty maestro and magician, and it didn’t take long to see that I had to do a deep dive into Milton-especially Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained-before I could even begin to approach his “prophetic works”, namely Milton(!) and Jerusalem, likely the most accomplished verse in English lit. Blake offers us endless adventures in the human consciousness, individual and collective. But I do assert (a priori) that loving Milton is fundamental to loving Blake!

[@iagoribeiro1163]

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat. What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp. Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

[@Debunker246]

wow thanks for uploading this...perfect..

[@rpremkumar1958]

Patti has a way of lending soul to the poem, I suspect as intended by the great Blake.

[@lopezb]

Beautiful! This line lept out to me: "In the forest of THY night"- Blake says "of THE night..." BUT I LIKE THIS: it IS the Tyger's own night, with all its aloneness, stillness, awareness and sudden, dreadful beauty....

[@robertloader9826]

It's 'the'.

[@DarlikaDor]

Patti Smith Reading the ~*ORIGINAL*~ manuscript of William Blake's 'The Tyger' that was lent to her by the British Museum!!! 💎💖😍 Go on... Bury me, I am dead! 😳

[@albertscheichstein4242]

i understood that she had a chance to hold it in the museum and look at it. And in this performance shes just chanting it and reading it from her personal notebook. I dont think that William Blake used PostIT notes :D

[@anshua9528]

Beautiful ♥️

[@issuesandtissues9280]

She's the greatest ever

[@Rrrrrrrrops]

❤patti Smith

[@chaybydesign]

amazing

[@DanDDirges]

Great William Blake poem and recessatation!

[@paperbird4765]

Beautiful

[@HeidiIvy]

she is so awessssoooome

[@BiblioAtlas]

Beautiful!

[@DerekLyons]

So very wonderful !

[@henriksoderstrom6815]

Strange if this reading is based on what she saw in the original manuscript. In that case the poem has been very widely published with an error in it. The generally published version goes "in the forests of the night" while she reads "forest" in both places. Personally I much prefer "forests", but that's just my silly opinion.

[@bartomeuprohens9403]

You are right: "forests" in the original: www.blakearchive.org/images/songsie.c.p50-42.100.jpg

[@loriscunado3607]

She is careless and imposes her own Selfhood on Blake's poem.

[@PaulRobertson-f1p]

right......

[@gekikara9274]

1:42 ～ Start singing.

[@AnthonyVargas96]

Red John

[@baraanani1]

my friend asoom recommended this and all I can say is WOW

[@davidfooterman6515]

I liked the composition, but it missed the point. Blake reflects on the tiger with amazement as he contemplates its Creator. The music has no life in it. The poem itself is dramatic in its sound, but the music is not. The poem is alive with excitement; the music comes across as a dirge, as though Blake were in mourning. But he was not: he was musing on the Creator of the tiger!

[@stuartarkovitz8758]

I agree. I think Blake would surely have sung it with a thunderous and ‘tremulous’ undertone, like a wizard conjuring spirits!

[@veilbreak5867]

Not the slightest strain in her voice. How can people do that. That was a great version.

[@chaybydesign]

wow this crazy, wasn't Patti's close friends name who died young Robert also?

[@davidkeitel5967]

What hymn music is this borrowed from.?

[@deborahchinn2439]

I’m assuming Patti gave the book back to the Met...

[@A2Z83]

anyone seen the movie Altar Boys

[@yousseflahrichi4132]

RED JOHN.

[@alexeygetrektov8637]

Red John was here.

[@RaulRodriguez-te6hk]

1:42

[@haifischbecken2201]

Sorry, but this melody is unsuitable to that great poem.

[@xchems117]

Red John's version is better.

[@kisuke2008]

LoL

[@amandagato7695]

[@RyuichiSakuma13]

I prefer the Tangerine Dream version of this poem, but she has a very interesting voice.

[@alexiskiri9693]

D*mn, when I saw this I thought I would hear a punk version of Blake's "The Tiger". This disappointed. She would of got a much bigger audience for the poem if she'd did a punk rock version using a half sung half spoken version interwebbed.

[@dantenatale4907]

simmetry should be pronounced simmetrAI

[@DukowskiX]

Do you have any theoretical support of that? Although I heard that, I have never found proof of that supposed "old" pronunciation, actually for me has more sense to keep it as it is since it breaks the symmetry with the word symmetry, which is a super good example to transition from romanticism to modernism where expected structures are defied (like in Eliot's Prufrock where every expected structure is broken intentionally)

[@matheusmavericco]

Well, the rhyme I think it's a good support. Althought, of course, it doesn't make her reading worse or something like that. It's brilliant: the way she reads the poem, making a sort of lullaby, is an incredible way to strengthen the proximity between the Tyger and the Lamb. I'm relistening this video for two weeks.

[@laszlotarnay6788]

It is indeed wonderful how she reads it. In fact, it was more a rule than a violation that rhyming was based on spelling instead of pronunciation. Shakespeare used the couples love/move or dove/move as rhyming couplets. So one should follow the rule for pronunciation to highlight the conceptual tension in the rhymes.

[@blusterybumblebee3958]

Nope, it's an eye rhyme (meaning that it visually looks like a rhyme but it doesn't rhyme when you pronounce it). Therefore she is pronouncing it correctly.

[@robertloader9826]

Nope.

[@brandonrobinson8136]

The dangerous lives of the alter boys

[@285209]

yep, AG was _great_ in his way but he was a bit of a ham too...

[@badvlad8421]

I prefer Tangerine Dream

[@gabriele_rossi]

Tyger

[@jkxjj]

impossible fish contortions

[@larsandersson8437]

A CAPELLA

[@LEXICOGRAFFER]

One Tyger, dead on the stage.

[@dzubairy6558]

Very badly narrated

[@Jon-dh3ki]

The singing made me cringe, oof, that's rough

[@nusratjabin8276]

Amazing

[@badvlad8421]

I prefer Tangerine Dream

[@paulpower7018]

TD is the original electronic music

[@brandonrobinson8136]

The dangerous lives of the alter boys